With one eye on Liverpool’s home clash with Chelsea tonight (they lead at the time of writing), I realise we’re on the last day of January and it’s been a productive one for the blog.
Having assessed the blogging landscape over Christmas, a few things were at play. Over October and November, with some additional time on my hands, I lit a fire under my radio / tech blog at kenmcguire.ie. From a work point of view (I’m a commercial radio engineer/tech head by day), it made sense to get it going and it got my grá for writing and blogging really turned up.
For Ken On Food, 2020 was busy-ish, 2021 a bit quieter, 2022 a ghost town. The whole Covid-19 time of our lives really took the pace out of things. No restaurants, no travel, plus a newborn in the house with all that entails. 2023 started to pick things up a little bit but what started with a promise of so much (to myself more than anything) in early January began to slow to the point where I penned the sum total of 19 posts.
As I sign off on January 2024, I think I’ve published 30 pieces this month, four short-form podcasts, and four newsletters. That’s almost more content produced in one month than I’ve done in three years and you know what? I’m been loving every second of it. Sure, you’ll wonder where things might be now if I sustained an effort like this month for the past 36 months but we are where we are and I’m having fun with food all over again.
Planning for January
Planning for January began in December, and having gone through the process on the tech front in September, the spreadsheet came out, backed with a paper diary copy too in my bag that gets packed with notes and ideas.
Initially, it looked a lot more sparse. I figured if I could get my first post out with intent on January 1 and follow that up with a post every three or four days, I’d be doing very well. That may give me nine or ten posts across the month and a nice way to ease back into things. Next thing you know, the posts are flowing and barring two days in the month, there’s been something new to read daily – both the missing days, as it happens, are due to me simply not finishing out draft posts so they may make an appearance in February.
In building consistency for the blog, I figured I needed to build in some features, so settled on three – a book of the month, a coffee of the month and my picks for places to eat for lunch in Kilkenny that month. dd in the return of the Ken On Food podcast, beginning with the weekly helping of Food In 5 Minutes, that makes for another four posts a month – now I’m up to seven. A roundup post like this, summarising the month, and I’m at eight. Add a casual post or two about Kilkenny, whether it’s being spoilt for choice for eateries, looking at the Gold Medal Awards or local school projects, and now there’s plenty of content to choose from.
Even the Irish food events and festivals list has had a proper spring clean, as a result being the most trafficked piece of content this month.
So on the whole, I think it’s been a pretty good month. It’s been great to get back in the writing groove, especially on the food front. I’ve spent the past two or three years covering sports on an almost daily basis. Returning to the food front has been energising and exciting. I’ve been out more, eaten more, drank more (all coffee) and have made a boatload of plans for the year ahead. Let’s just say that spreadsheet is going to come in handy.
Rekindling the podcast
If the blog was coming back, the podcast was coming back and this past month has given me plenty of room to plan ahead, not just for the Food In 5 Minutes series but for host of podcast-related activities.
For those who may have missed it, you can get the Ken On Food Podcast anywhere you do your podcast listening, Acast providing the backbone for distribution for this one, and you’ll get Food In 5 Minutes dropping in the early hours of Sunday morning, every Sunday morning. Food In 5 Minutes is a short-form podcast, meaning it will cost you 5-7 minutes of your time on a Sunday morning (or whenever you choose to listen) and in that time you’ll get five food stories summarised from across the week. The stories picked are primarily Irish, they may have landed in my inbox during the week, made the headlines in Ireland, or have caught my eye on the international front over the previous seven days. Here’s a listen to the most recent episode.
It’s a fun piece to produce and makes a change from me talking about football every Friday for the past three years! If you’ve not done so already, you can subscribe via Spotify or Apple Podcasts to make sure you get the latest episodes when they land.
Starting a newsletter
As if churning out 30 posts on the blog and getting a podcast up and running (along with rekindling my Instagram account and getting some faceless TikTok action going), January gave me a chance to start a newsletter of my own via Substack.
I’ve been subscribed to a few food publications for a while and figured if people don’t have time to read the blog every day, or stay away from Facebook, Twitter/X or other social platforms for content, then maybe they would like to get a little something in their inbox on a Sunday. What started out as a straight-up accompaniment to Food In 5 Minutes has evolved over the past few weeks to include additional reads, recommended listening, highlights from the blog, recipes to try for the week ahead and more.
I feel a newsletter has got to offer some kind of value (even when it’s free) and I’m hoping those who have subscribed and are reading already are finding just that. Again, you can sign up for it here via Substack, with a fresh edition landing in your inbox every Sunday morning around 7am.
But it’s been good craic, right?
Absolutely. As far as January goes, it’s been a great month on the content front. However, it’s one thing to have a plan and a tidy spreadsheet to go along with it, it’s another thing to execute it and execute it the way you want to. While I’d love to go full tilt at it, getting things up and going again is more about baby steps. As it stands, the majority of my planning gets done at the weekend, podcast prep is down to the wire given the current nature of stories, and any writing is usually late at night (hence Liverpool leading late in the second half here against Chelsea of a Wednesday night in January) but as I outlined somewhere at the start of the year – possibly here – 2024 is about reinvesting in myself, in the things I love doing, and this is very much one of those.
Onwards toward February
If you’ve enjoyed any of the content on the blog this past month, feel free to leave a comment below and share your thoughts – I’m all ears. You can also reach me by mail at any stage on ken@kenonfood.com. Similarly, if you’ve been listening the podcast, like what you hear and you’d like to hear more, use the review feature on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to drop a 5* rating or share feedback through the Q&A options. Thanks for reading!
